Bridged the A500's for half a kilowatt each to the woofs, the Sony car amp now runs the tweets and the new sub is still run off the old plate sub amp. It's a strange mix of car audio and pro audio that works better than I could have imagined.

Just used some premade cables and everything just works fine. No sub "tinking" no noise just good sound. Who'd believe it? Gotta love Behringer.

The dynamics went through the roof! I'm still clipping the A500's and the tweeter is getting about 2.5 watts, which is just what I was expecting. What I was not expecting was the dynamic range improvement. The clip light still hits, but the average is way below what is was before. And the shit is clean baby - :2tu:

Next I will try the new Selenium compression drivers that have been here for 6 months gathering dust and I may just get the garage stereo buttoned up next week.

The new sub works great. Better than the old one, no boom, no one note, no strain at all. Life is good.

I'll have some pics and description soon. Was so busy setting up and playing tunes I got called to supper. Takes a lot to to distract me from supper - :lol:

Was so easy I am still surprised. Especially with the balanced to unbalanced stuff working out so well. There is some good synergy with car / pro audio, both tend to have relatively high voltage signal lines.

I've always been a fast eater too... probably a lot of my weight trouble to be honest. By the time the first plate got shoveled in, and I should be full... I was getting more.... cause.. I was not full. Now, I stop when I'm full... eating slow sucks

Well, it looks better and I gotta say it sounds better too. More detail and less smearing. Cymbals sound crisp w/o the sound being just a hissing noise. The ASD was smoother than the APT but some detail was lost. The Selenium has the detail w/o the harshness. The system has gotten almost polite sounding. It was easy to tell the difference between the 2 drivers.

And the really cool thing is to change tweeters all you have to do is unscrew one and screw in another -

Of course it also helps to have the electronic crossover so you don't have to worry about passive component changes. I have the system sounding real good with XO points of 60 and 2800 Hz.

Now just have to install (grunt-groan) the other tweeter and I think I will be done with ladder routine.

He doesn't even need the hearing aids to get the dialog on the HT, doesn't even wear them anymore. And he is 6 feet away from a 42" plasma compared to 15 feet away from a 27" CRT. One of the reasons I built the LCC was a reviewer who was deaf in one ear could get good dialog with it. I figured if it was clear enough for deaf people, that was as good as it got.

He hasn't been in the garage with the stereo yet, but he was in the house when I was crankin'. When I came in he was like "you have some big amplifiers out there eh"

Very cool! My step dad still talks about coming to my house on Christmas 11 or 12 years ago. I had a DPL system and a stereo vcr. We watched Mercury Rising, and, he still talks about the helicoptor flying over our heads.

The bi-amp thing was cool and clean, but it also showed that I was using an eighth kilowatt amp to provide 2 watts. Much better to use the hi watt amps on the mains. The little Sony car amp works perfectly for the tweeters and the A500's bridged are amazing on the Beta 10's.

Before, I had the sub amp running off the head unit. Now the head unit is 2 channel and the 3400 works 3 way, low frequency summed. Very clean.

The sub is the sub, it is better than before, but that was never the weak spot of this system. And even though it is like 2X the size it was before, it is still smaller than the mains. This is one of the weird systems where the mains are bigger than the sub. But then this system is not like other systems, it is out of phase all the way around.

Just qued up "Sweet Lady" and it was amazing. Such power, clarity and depth. Yes, the red light was blinking -

Mike
Would you please kind of list the numbers of the tweeter you are trying, along with the similar replacement if it is no longer available. I will order some so I can try the diferences. My wife has a hard time with vocal range in movies and this may be a really good help.
Thanks for discovering this. :2tu:

Tell ya what, may I ask if you list all the stuff in the system with photos. You are kind of random in the Mike B way so it would be neat to see it in order so to speak.
Thanks

Which looks like they have cheaped out on the pushbuttons in favor of fastons.

From the source (Pioneer DEH-P500UB, a car audio head unit) we go to the third octave equalizer (Behringer FBQ3102) via RCA cables and RCA to phone plug adapters.

The output of the equalizer goes to the 3 way active crossover (Behringer CX3400) via balanced XLR to XLR cable. The crossover is 24 dB / octave and feeds the highs (~2800 Hz up) to the tweeter amp (Sony XM502X) which is rated 50 watts / ch into 4 ohms and so 25 into 8 ohms. Since I am using about 2.5 watts max, this unit has lots of headroom. This connection is by XLR to RCA cable. The mids (60 to 2800 Hz) go to the A500's via XLR to XLR cables and the lows (60 Hz and below) go to the sub amp (Rhythmic Audio 250 watt plate amp) via XLR to RCA cable.

The 3400 sums the lows to one output. So, 5 drivers driven by 5 amps.

Here's a pic of the speaks hanging from the rafters

And the sub also tucked away up there. This system takes up zero floor space -

As I said, this system is the inverse of most stereos.

In most systems, the speakers are on the floor, here they are on the ceiling. In most rooms you sit and listen, here you stand. In most rooms you set a up a chair where you want it and carefully adjust the speaks just so. Here the speaks stay put and you adjust your position for the sound you want.

Well, poor resale value for the builder is a GREAT buy for the "other guy". My first IB / amp cost $180 plus shipping and MDF. My second, well, the amp was new at $250 but I bought the 4 18's for the price of 2 new. Buying used is a risk, but, so far I've been lucky.